Using Recovery Media
Hi
I have Acronis 2014 installed on my old PC (Windows XP SP3) and my Laptop (Windows Home Premium 64-bit).
I have made Rescue Media on a DVD for the PC and a USB Flash Drive for the Laptop and have been trying to test these on both my computers but without any success.
I changed the boot order in the BIOS to boot from the appropriate media device first and can get into the opening screen of TI 2014 but then I get a blank screen for a while and then the computers restart and boot into Windows.
One of the Windows that appears during the process gives me the options of Windows, TI2014 and one other which I can't remember. I have been highlighting the TI 2014 option expecting to enter the usual TI 2014 interface.
I am wondering whether the Rescue Media only works when the normal boot into Windows fails. Is this the case and if not what might be causing my Rescue media to not take me into TI 2014 to see my backups etc.
I also wonder whether I should also be activating the Acronis Startup recovery Manager and if I do, would that affect my normal boot sequence and would it allow me to access my backups to check that they are viable?
Thanks - I'll try that. I think I may have been using the enter key.
Any thoughts on activating and using the Startup Recovery Manager?
I changed the boot order in the BIOS to boot from the appropriate media device first and can get into the opening screen of TI 2014 but then I get a blank screen for a while and then the computers restart and boot into Windows.One of the Windows that appears during the process gives me the options of Windows, TI2014 and one other which I can't remember. I have been highlighting the TI 2014 option expecting to enter the usual TI 2014 interface.
On bootup into the CD menu, the normal menu select by the program is Windows and you have only about 10-15 seconds to manually select true Image as the new boot option. After expiration of the few seconds window, the computer will auto boot back into windows due to the default setting.
Creating a new TI CD:
The default menu selection (from Windows to TI) can be changed by creating a new CD and specifically changing the menu selection and change the time from 30 seconds up to a max of 100 seconds. During the changing of the seconds, TI must be the highlighted/selected menu item. If you cannot change the seconds, then TI is not hightlighted on the menu and must be reseleected again.
Thanks for the input.
I have booted from the Media Device, highlighted the TI 2014 option, and then got the screen showing that Acronis TI is loading. I then get a small Acronis window, which hangs, and then I get into a loop which repeats the process until I stop it by accessing the boot menu and select robot from the HD into Windows.
This happens on both the PC and the Laptop using CD for the PC and a Flash Drive for the Laptop.
This problem never occurred with my previous versions of TI - 2011, 2012 & 2013.
Any further suggestions?
Follow up on the previous post.
Today I tried the Recovery Media Flash Drive on my Laptop and this time it worked. I then deleted all the files and did a full format of my Flash Drive and replaced it with a new copy of the TI 2014 Recovery Media but this time I set the delay to 20 seconds. I tested this new copy twice by recovering various files and was successful both times.
I am still mystified as to why it failed to work before.
I have yet to try the Recovery Media CD on my PC - it will be interesting to see whether this now works as it should although I shall make a new one with the boot delay option set to 20 seconds.
I'll post my findings in due course.
I made yet another Recovery CD for the PC with the same settings as I used for the Flash Drive for the Laptop and have now tested it.
It boots into the Acronis loader from the CD and allows me to select the Acronis True Image 2014 option. Then, after a black screen appears with a few lines of data relating to Raid Discs (I have none), it displays the screen shown in the attached image, at which point it hangs (the egg timer cursor not moving).
If I then use the PC's restart button it will cycle through the same process, hanging again at the same screen.
I can only get out of this state by using the restart button again and booting from the HDD but, of course, unable to use the Recovery Application.
Any suggestions?
Try refreshing your CD ROM driver.
Open Device Manager run as administrator
Find and highlight your CD drive
Right click on CD drive and choose Uninstall Driver, confirm uninstall
At top of Device Manager window highlight Computer, right click and choose Scan for New Hardware
Windows should locate you CD drive and search for and reinstall the driver.
Perhans a Windows style format would be usable. Links work with 2014. Media Add-ons available for download from your download links.
23882: Acronis True Image Home 2012 Plus Pack: Creating WinPE Media with Acronis Plug-In
http://kb.acronis.com/content/23882
1506: Working with Acronis True Image Plug-In for BartPE
http://kb.acronis.com/content/1506
Also, signature link #10 with link to Mustangs PEBuilde
Or you might contact support direct and see if have an alternate Recovery CD.
Bob
I tried refeshing the CD Rom Driver, made another CD, but it made no difference to the inability to use the Recovery CD.
When attempting to load Acronis from the Recovery CD there was a black screen between the loading options (the one that gives Acronis TI 2014, System report & Windows) and before the final Acronis screen at the point it hangs which seems to be a check of the discs on the PC. I tried to pause the window to read what it said but couldn't and it passed so quickly that I couldn.t read the data but there were about four lines and all said "no" to some discs.
I attach a screen shot of the status of my Discs and Partitions from within Acronis Tools and Utilities and wonder whether the result suggests that the two HDDs are somehow unsupported by Acronis and might explain the problem.
I do see where you have partitons on your disks assigned drive letters E: on disk on Disk 1 and drive H: on disk 2.
Acronis has marked as unallocated/unsupported. Your suspicions here may well be correct.
What are these drives? Did you create them or know how they got there? Can you access them in Windows Disk Management?
Hi
Partition H is used as a Scratch Disc for my Imaging Software (best on adifferent drive) and E is a small partition for putting Temporary Files for various projects - this allows me to defrag them quickly before processing them. All behave as they should in Windows and all applications.
I was more concerned about the grey section at the beginning of each HDD giving the total capacity of each - the grey colour might indicate that the whole of both drives are incompatible with Acronis.
Do you have any Raid options enabled in your bios? If so disable them. If your drives are connected to ports run by Raid controller there might some conflict there, very unlikely but you just never know sometimes. You might try attachinbg drives to different ports if that is possible. Ideally drives should reside on port 0 and 1 with 0 being OS drive.
I don't have the RAID Option enabled in the BIOS I have my DVD/CD Optical Drive and my CD ROM Optical Drive connected as Master and Slave to the first IDE Port on the Motherboard and my two HDDs connected to the S-ATA Ports with the one containing the System C Partition in the first Port and the second HDD in the second.
I have looked at the Discs and Partitions tool for the Laptop and it shows a similar grey total for the one HDD with the three partitions I have all looking similar to the one for the PC so the fact that the first box giving the total Disc capacity is grey seems to be normal and means nothing.
I compared the contents of the Recovery CD for the PC and the Recovery USB Flash Drive for the Laptop and see that the contents differ quite dramatically; I would have expected both media content to be somewhat similar since I am using the same Version (the latest) of TI 2014 - the only difference would be that the PC has Windows XP (HE) with SP3 and the Laptop Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. I have attached images of the various screens from each media. This might show whether the Recovery CD for the PC is not being created properly.
As I understand that these Recover Media use Linux I wonder whether a Recovery CD made on my Laptop work with the PC despite the different operating systems? Any thoughts?
Recovery media created by True Image is the same regardless of which pc you created it on. The disc version is just unbearably slow compared to the speed of the USB flash drive. You can use the flash drive on both PCs. Acronis does not add any drivers specific to the system it is created on to the recovery media. Try using the USB recovery media on your Desktop and see if you get the same results.
The contents of the CD and USB drive look different from windows explorer because all of the important files on the disc version are hidden and cannot be seen. If you look at the cd from the my computer window, it shows a size of around 435mb, however when you open the cd it only shows the 150mb folder that is used to activate the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.
If the USB drive doesn't work with your desktop, you need to contact Acronis technical support. Recovery issues are free.
Did you verify MD5 checksum on the file used to create the boot media? This may not apply but here's a link on how to do so.
Did you verify MD5 checksum on the file used to create the boot media? This may not apply but here's a link on how to do so.
Hi
No, I have never done this check on any of my Acronis installations and have had no problems using the Recovery Media until I installed TI 2014.
I have just installed the Checksum Calculator utility and compared the two items you suggested. I presume I should use the TrueImage.exe file as the comparison to the Checksum listed in the Web Site Downloads for the version I am using (TI2014 Build 6673). The two Checksums do not match.
I then uninstalled TI2014 completely and reinstalled it from a fresh downloaded installation file, made a new Recovery media on my USB Device and have checked that it works by recovering some files from my latest backup, which it did successfully. However, when I rechecked the Checksum against the TrueImage.exe file of the new installation it still doesn't match.
As everything about Acronis TI 2014 works as it should on the Laptop what significance is there regarding the Checksum differences? At the moment I cannot see what else I can do to put this error right, if it is an error.
I shall now uninstall TI2014 from the PC and do a fresh reinstall from the latest build file and see how that goes.
You check the MD5 sum of the downloaded install file which is currently AcronisTrueImage2014_6673-en.exe for me not the installed pieces.
The rescue media created in the program makes a Linux based disk. Linux just doesn't support all hardware. Usually when this happens the Linux kernel doesn't support your hardware. It happens often. You need to go back to post #8 where Grover tried to help you. You need to have the Premium version of TI with the free plugin for the Media add-on installed to make a WinPE disk. WinPE will support much more hardware than Linux. In the few cases your hardware is not supported, you will be able to add the needed drivers. This option is not supported with the Linux rescue media.
EricG,
Mustang is correct here, it is at this point a hardware compatibility issue so you then need to follow Mustangs advice.
You check the MD5 sum of the downloaded install file which is currently AcronisTrueImage2014_6673-en.exe for me not the installed pieces.
Thanks. I take it that all the check does is to make sure that the installation file matches the one on the Web then?
The rescue media created in the program makes a Linux based disk. Linux just doesn't support all hardware. Usually when this happens the Linux kernel doesn't support your hardware. It happens often. You need to go back to post #8 where Grover tried to help you. You need to have the Premium version of TI with the free plugin for the Media add-on installed to make a WinPE disk. WinPE will support much more hardware than Linux. In the few cases your hardware is not supported, you will be able to add the needed drivers. This option is not supported with the Linux rescue media.
I haven't pursued this option because it seems quite complex to set up and with no guarantee that it would work either. It would easier for me to return to my Norton Ghost Version 14 on my PC tools towhich is compatible with my PC's hardware. My only reason for switching to Acronis TI was to make life easier by using the same application on all my computers as I also have a Netbook with Acronis TI Netbook Version installed.
However, thanks to everyone who has contributed to this discussion.